By Arren Kimbel-Sannit | Arizona Capitol Times
Efforts by activists to pressure policymakers into defunding or otherwise disassociating from police have manifested in calls for legislators to return campaign contributions from the political arms of police unions. Political action committees for police unions have spent tens of thousands of dollars in the current election cycles on legislative campaigns from both sides of the aisle, a long-standing practice.
Now, amid international protests against police violence and broad frustration with the slow pace of traditional reform, groups like Progress Now Arizona, a Phoenix-based nonprofit, are calling out lawmakers who have received money from police unions, pressuring them to return the money, declare they never actually accepted the contributions or forward the money to other organizations.The group posted a growing, crowd-sourced list on Twitter June 1 of recent contributions from local and state police unions to legislators compiled from state campaign finance data
